There are some things that you can’t compromise on

Like many happily married men, I am sometimes given the grocery list by the Lovely Doreen from Waukesha. My wife trusts me because she knows I will stand in the aisle for ten minutes figuring out the best price for an item. Is the generic cheaper? What about the Roundys brand? What size gives me the best value?

I have learned there are limits. Generic cola is not the same as Coca-Cola. Generic peanut butter tastes like sand paper. And speaking of sand paper:

The issue over tissue in the bathroom — the really super-soft stuff — is more like the fight about the big SUVs loved by many Americans.

Anti-green, according to environmentalists. Politically incorrect. Why should Americans use luxurious toilet paper made from old-growth trees when much of the world gets by with a far more basic and often recycled product?

Why should we flush redwoods, so to speak?

So Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups have pushed manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark (Cottonelle) and Procter & Gamble (Charmin) to stop using wood from virgin forests to make tissue products.

Mountains of paper are dumped every day into recycling bins in homes, offices, factories and schools. Use that to make toilet paper, the activists said.

Time to roll off the big number: If each American family would buy one recycled roll just one time, it would save 400,000 trees, allegedly.

The problem, though, is that each time paper is shredded during the recycling process, its fibers get shorter. The shorter the fiber, the less soft the tissue. And Americans, though indicating in surveys that they embraced green initiatives, also said they don’t want to sacrifice comfort.

“The truth is that other parts of the world are further along in using recycled content,” said Kay Jackson, spokeswoman for Kimberly-Clark. “The American consumer still wants softness, and they are speaking with their pocketbooks.”

I dare the environmentalists to come after our toilet paper. I guarantee there will be counter-demonstrations in the streets. The 1960s demonstrations burned their draft cards. We’ll have bonfires of toilet paper made from recycled paper.